


A Needless Redemption

by chaiannie



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Monsters aren't going to be straight up evil, Other, Reader Is Not Frisk, Relationship with Sans will be gradual and completely consensual on both sides, Underfell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-02 20:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5262956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaiannie/pseuds/chaiannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've read that monsters were made up of magic, love, and compassion. What happened to the last two?"</p><p>Sans snorted, "you read wrong."</p><p>You allow yourself a small smile, "No, I don't think that I have."</p><p>OR: Reader helps these monsters work through some issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Water You Doing

A bed of golden flowers, shockingly enough does not provide enough (or any) cushioning to protect you from a steep fall. Were this not common knowledge, you're sure the throbbing at the base of your skull would have informed you of this.

You prop yourself up on to your elbows with a wince. Various gashes and scrapes riddle your skin – nothing too serious, but you're sure that if you had a mirror at hand you would look like the human equivalent of a bruised banana. 

Light filters in from the top of the hole and if you look carefully you can spot the still wagging tail of the annoyingly energetic dog that had rammed into you and caused this entire mess. The mess that had led to you slipping down to – you glance down at the suspiciously placed flowers and back up to your right at the extremely out of place corridor – to wherever this is.

You let the situation sink in for a little longer and...

Your love of dogs has been greatly reduced.

You briefly consider attempting to scale the rocky walls and make your way back up to the surface, but even you, without any professional experience can tell that there aren't nearly enough protrusions to grapple safely. You're just likely to fall again and hurt yourself more than you already are.

The easy thing to do would be to recede from your current position and go back to lying down, the easy thing to do would be to let yourself rest up before making a move. 

Or, even easier, you could make no move at all.

Prior to taking this trip you made sure to inform your dorm mate that you would be taking a weekend trip to Mt. Ebbot to take some reference pictures for one of your art courses so surely they would take notice of your absence and notify the authorities once you've been gone a day or two longer than planned. Or at least you hoped so. You don't really know where you stand with them so they could just shrug and take it as a brief relief from your presence and not inform anyone. You guys that's what you get for trying to branch out rather than going with the safer option of rooming with one of your friends.

But still, it's probably safest to wait for a rescue team. Or rangers! They must have rangers to patrol the area every so often to see if anyone has wandered through the area.

There are a multitude of reasons that you could use as motivation to tap in to your skills of procrastination to take the easy route of doing absolutely nothing and hoping for the best, but waiting for a rescue team is the only reason that holds any sort of weight or validity. With that, you take a deep breath and ready yourself for the waiting game. You're good at that. You would be doing that were it not for the insistent need to check your bag tugging away at your mind. 

Sighing, you reach for the messenger bag you had draped over your shoulder when you fell, turn the latches that keep it closed, and begin to take take note of its contents: a cell phone with no signal accompanied by its charger, a few hastily made sandwiches that got ruined during the fall, a camera, and, most importantly, water.

Oh, wait.

No water.

No water?

Frantically, you turn the bag inside out as if there were some sort of crevice your water could have been hidden in – you KNOW you packed it. You may be forgetful at the best of times, but you repacked this bag multiple times before stepping out the door.

Nothing.

You check again.

Still nothing.

What the actual fuck. Okay, there's nothing there. You've officially struck out and any hopes of becoming a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat have dissipated in the span of a minute. 

A moment to access the situation. You're stuck in a hole in the ground for an indeterminate amount of time and seeing as your dorm mate may or may not hate you you're not too keen on relying on them for noticing your absence, and you are threatened by the very really possibility of dehydration. If worse comes to worst you suppose you could always make like that survivalist who drank their own pee, but that's just...not for you. Nope.

You bite your lip, chew it thoughtfully, and let your eyes wander down to the ominous corridor. And just like that you're moving to place your belongings back into your bag and slinging it over your shoulder.

It couldn't hurt to check, right?

Your expression twisted in distaste the moment your foot made contact with the ground. Pins and needles made for an almost static feeling in your shaking legs that made it a bit more difficult than usual to walk, but you continued onward, willing the feeling to go away.

________________________________________

Were you still a child it's likely that the sight of this beautifully crafted doorway would have your fears give way to the feeling of awe and hope for adventure that it clearly promised.

As a bitter adult, all it did was make you anxious, itching for the safety of the flower bed once more even if it couldn't much to soften a landing. 

Cautiously, you take a step forward darkness immediately takes hold – the room's only actual light source is unidentifiable but in the center of the room there is a small spotlight on what appears to be a small golden flower. You crane your neck upwards just to make sure that there wasn't some sort of fixture and - yeah there's nothing there. You try not to look too deeply into the lighting from that point on.

The placement of a single flower strikes you as a bit odd too, but so did the conveniently place bed of flowers in the previous room. Who were you to judge the precarious placements of various flora? Not someone very qualified, that's for sure.

“Howdy! 

You jump, a startled scream rips from your throat, your hands wave frantically as you struggle to balance yourself. You stumble over yourself a few times and end up needing place a single hand against the wall to steady yourself. 

After a few deep, shuddering breaths, eyes surveying the inky darkness before you, hoping to find some irregularities in it that could be a person hiding. 

Maybe they fell, too.

“Who,” You struggle with the words, they almost seem to be catching in your throat, “Who's there?”

“Down here, silly!”

Your gaze slowly slid down to the flower. Wait.

The flower?

It looks at you with what almost seems to be a pitying look, smile on its face looking a tad strained. 

“Golly, you really took a wrong step, didn't you?”

Perhaps that fall left your mind more scrambled than you had first anticipated.


	2. How's It Growing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You decide to have a civil conversation with a flower.
> 
> What the hell is wrong with you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is taking me so long to get you! I mostly draw things and writing fics hasn't been a thing that I've done since like 2012 so its been a little difficult to get back into that sort of rhythm!

What the hell?

Your eyes don't stray from the flower and his eyes don't stray from yours. The urge to move is strong, but is reluctantly pushed down in favor properly accessing the situation via a conversation with a, well, a flower. 

Still though. You dig your fingernails into your arm to affirm that yes this is reality and no, you're not hallucinating. Disappointment surges through you.

“I'm Flowey the flower,” He introduces, voice somber and echoing throughout the vast emptiness of the room. Upon closer inspection you notice that his petals are more tattered at the edges rather than the healthy bloom you had first thought them to be and that his posture makes it seem like he's wilting. 

“I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you, but...” His eyes shift around the room warily, stem twisting as he moves to look behind him. “it's not safe for you here. Or for me, really.”

“Flowey,” you echo back, scrunching your nose and gently rubbing at your temple as if it would to much to ward off the incoming headache. This alone is already too much to take in, but you get the feeling that there's a lot more coming. “Flowey the flower.” 

The repetition of his name does little to make the situation more believable, but you honestly didn't expect it to. 

“Alright,” Your voice comes out stronger than you feel and the word is punctuated by your fervent gesticulation. You can't help it, you gesture a lot when speaking – a trait that had ended in quite a few embarrassing accidents involving unsuspecting people back up on the surface that you honestly would rather not think about. 

“Normally I wouldn't even consider listening to a flower, but clearly you're something out of this world so,” you seat yourself on the ground, crossing your legs, ultimately resigning yourself to your fate. “Lay it on me.”

“Gosh, you're not very smart, are you? Maybe I'm out of what you humans perceive to be your world, but I can assure you – I, and the monsters who also live down here also belong on the surface. Or at least they used to...” He trails off for a moment, contemplating.

“Being locked away for so long has,” He stops again, trying to pick his words carefully. “It has hurt so many of them. The oldest monsters have become bitter and resentful towards each other and humanity because they're all hurting. The younger monsters learn from their example.”

“And, well,” he breaks eye contact for the first time. “It doesn't end well for your kind whenever they fall down here.”

The reality of the situation is finally settling in and you're filled with pure, unadulterated, dread. 

Monsters had been nothing more than a myth to you for years. 

They were stories relayed to you by adults from the point you were a baby with an ugly wrinkled face that resembled that of a raisin and to the point you were in elementary school and played pretend, whisking yourself away on mystical live changing adventures with a poorly made cape that declared you a hero. They were tales on the same caliber as Peter Pan and the like, a pipe dream used as a form of escapism but nothing more than that.

But they were real, they had suffered, and here was one rooted in front of you.

“I used to wish to see the surface firsthand, but now I'm more afraid of what would happen if I could. Afraid for what it could mean for both monterkind and humankind,” His stare is leveled in its intensity. “And what if means for you now that you're down here, too.”

The room falls silent for a moment.

Two moments.

You're shaking. 

The implications were staggering that's for sure. It wasn't very hard to understand why monsters would rather see your rotting corpse than stop for a civil conversation...but 

But apparently it hadn't always been that way.

And that makes you feel something. You're not sure what it is exactly, but it's enough to spur you on.

“I won't die,” The declaration comes out a lot stronger than you actually feel and you're so caught up by that thought that you don't notice the doubtful look Flowey is sending your way. “And when I leave maybe I can take you with me.”

You smile a little at the thought.

He's ready to protest, thinking that you didn't fully understand the gravity of the situation, but that look in your eyes – it's something too familiar to brush off. 

He readies himself to respond, but then he hears it and he just... stops. 

You're about to ask whats wrong, but then you hear it too. 

The distinct sound of footsteps thudding in your direction. They're strong, confident, and judging from Flowey's reaction; probably not best for you.

“Hide,” He breaths and he folds into himself, disappearing beneath the soil with a distinct pop. 

What the hell, alright then. You're doing this solo. 

You dart into the shadows, cursing the room for not having any large obstructions to use as cover. The best you can do is sit there and hope that whatever – whoever – it is coming into the room aren't feeling up to being very attentive. 

You're nestled into the upper left-hand corner of the room, heart palpitating wildly and sweat beginning to gather. Which is great, because you really wanted to feel like sweaty garbage today.

If luck happens to be on your side, whoever it is may just pass you by without a problem. Luck wasn't something you were prepared to rely on though. You ready yourself to run at any moment and continue to wait in a prolonged, anxious, silence.

The steps bound closer and if you focus enough, you could hear a voice humming a soft tune. It would have been relaxing were it not for the fact the owner of the voice likely wanted you dead.

And then, you see her. She steps into the room with purposeful, elegant steps befitting of royalty. She stops to look over the room eyes scanning carefully, thankfully forgetting to look behind her and leaving you safe for the moment. 

Her garb is a combination of red and black – why did you have a feeling that this would be a reoccurring thing? You had no basis for that conclusion – but she looks absolutely intimidating, and she–

Well, she is a goddamn goat lady.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoooo if you would like to talk about the fic (or try to get me to get my butt into gear) feel free to hmu on tumblr!
> 
> http://chaiannie.tumblr.com/
> 
> I'm going to try to get the entirety Toriel section done in the next chapter because I don't want it to be dragging on for too long and so we can get to the sad skeletons!
> 
> So i'll be trying to get off my butt and make sure the chapter is like 3k// but yeah!! if you wanna talk hmu anytime
> 
> EDIT: I just went back to edit this and chapter 1, not many additions have been made, but I fixed some small mistakes but i've probably missed some still lmao

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to contact me about the fic or just talk at all hmu at http://chaiannie.tumblr.com/


End file.
